Chemicals leak near Festus,MO

Fox | Aug 14,2002 | Not-alone

[not-alone]

Possible clorine gas, no injuries-unsure of what it is and if it is coming from train or tanks near by.

[Mo1]

Fox is airing a video feed from the area

[Thane_Banquo]

Wow! Looks bad. How harmful is chlorine gas?

[not-alone]

Fox just said it can be deadly-

[not-alone]

About five minutes ago Fox said the FBI learned about it from TV, also early pictures it looked like it coming out of the white tank and going against the train and under it.

[Mo1]

I really don't know alot about chlorine gas .. but I'm guessing it's not good for a person

Fox said that the hazmat unit is coming out and folks are being evacuated

[Pete]

From http://banthrax.com/glossary.html?source=Overture

This early Chemical Weapon is a pure elemental gas that inflicts damage after forming hydrochloric acid by mixing with moisture such as found in the lungs and eyes. It is lethal at a mix of 1:5000 (gas/air), while other true gasses like phosgene and diphosgene are much more potent.

[ao98]

According to a Google search Chlorine gas was one of the chemicals used in WWI trench warfare.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

09:06 PDT CRYSTAL CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Residents of a mobile home park near a former chemical plant south of St. Louis were ordered to evacuate on Wednesday after a freight train car began leaking a potentially hazardous substance.

Officials with the sheriff's department said the spilled substance was believed to be ammonia. The amount of the spill and its cause were not immediately known.

No injuries were immediately reported. Officials said the evacuations at the site, about 30 miles south of St. Louis, were precautionary.

[not-alone]

DBS Industries , Msnbc reporting from scene , still getting people out.

[Catspaw]

Nasty stuff. I found this in a cursory google.com search for "chlorine gas hazard." I'm sure there are other sources out there:

CHLORINE

Cases

Chlorine poisoning in Sri Lanka

A case of chlorine poisoning in a 37-year-old mechanical supervisor at a water purification plant in Sri Lanka is described. Manipulating the main cylinder valve, he was exposed to chlorine fumes for a few seconds as he was running in and out to stop the gas flow. He started to have an intense feeling of suffocation and tightness of chest, coughing, intolerable irritation of eyes and mouth, headache and stomach problems. He still had symptoms 27 days after the incident.

Transport accident

A massive chlorine release as a result of a tank leak in a car carrying chlorine took place in Norway. A total of 85 people, from 6 months to 82 years of age were hospitalized, and out of those 3 died. approximately 7-8 tons of chlorine gas formed a 10 km long cloud which covered the valley.

Facts about chlorine

It is a greenish-yellow gas with a pungent odour. Chlorine is heavier than air and the cloud formed tends to spread along the ground. It can fill cellars or flow into subway tunnels as it did in an accident in New York leading to the hospitalization of 208 persons.

Chlorine is chemically very active. Dry chlorine at ambient temperatures reacts directly with many materials including metals. Dry chlorine does not attack steel and it is supplied commercially in steel containers in liquid form under pressure.

As liquid chlorine evaporats, at boiling point (-340 °C), one volume unit of liquid forms 457 volume units of gas.

Traces of moisture in chlorine lead to rapid corrosion of steel, copper and nickel. Chlorine react vigorously with organic compounds including mineral oils and greases. Mixtures of chlorine and hydrogen gases are explosive.

Chlorine dissolves in water at a rate of 6.5 g of chlorine to one litre of water at ambient temperature. The solution is acidic and corrosive, and it has oxidizing, bleaching and germicidal properties. The water solution in a process should be kept above a temperature of 9.60 °C in order to avoid blockages as a result of formation of solid chlorine hydrate.

The reactivity of chlorine strongly limits the choice of materials used in construction when planning an installation. A system constructed of steel must itself be dry before allowing chlorine to enter in it. Titanium is a satisfactory construction material at temperatures well below 1000 °C provided that the moisture level is kept high. Titanium is resistant only to wet chlorine, and consideration should be given to a possible fault where dry chlorine could come into contact with the titanium. Other materials which are resistant to the attack of both wet and dry chlorine gas at ambient temperatures include glass stoneware, porcelain and some plastics.

Where chlorine is part of the product, such as chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents, it may be liberated in a fire or when in contact with incompatible chemicals giving off hazardous gases and fumes.

The recommended exposure limit, Threshold Limit Value (TLV), for chlorine is 1 part per million (ppm), a concentration which is at the limit of odour detection. The Short Term Exposure Limit (STEL) is 3 ppm.

Chlorine is a respiratory irritant. Exposure to chlorine at levels of around 15 ppm leads to irritation of the mucous membranes of the eyes and nose, and especially of the throat and lungs. Liquid chlorine causes frost burns and is corrosive to human tissue.

The gas becomes fatal at concentrations of 100-150 ppm with an exposure duration of 5-10 minutes.

 

The accidental instantaneous release of 10 tons of chlorine may result in a maximum concentration of 140 ppm at a distance of 2 kilometres downwind from the source and 15 ppm at a distance of 5 kilometres (under normal non-inversion weather conditions).

A chlorine vessel of 1 ton releasing liquid at full flow through an open valve will be empty in about 10 minutes, and a cylinder in far less time.

[Mo1]

Officials with the sheriff's department said the spilled substance was believed to be ammonia

Fox News confirmed it was Chroline Gas and not ammonia

The pictures of the site don't look good

[Lee Heggy]

Lance Sergeant Elmer Cotton, described the effects of chlorine gas in 1915.

It produces a flooding of the lungs - it is an equivalent death to drowning only on dry land. The effects are these - a splitting headache and terrific thirst (to drink water is instant death), a knife edge of pain in the lungs and the coughing up of a greenish froth off the stomach and the lungs, ending finally in insensibility and death. The colour of the skin from white turns a greenish black and yellow, the colour protrudes and the eyes assume a glassy stare. It is a fiendish death to die.

[mystery-ak]

I would think the train car would be empty by now....is it a broken valve at the plant itself?

[kcpopps]

I checked where Crystal City MO is because I didn't know. Yahoo Map shows it directly south of St Louis in case anyone was wondering.

[Frank_Discussion]

C'mon, somebody's got to say it, and it's not gonna be me...

[mommya]

Don't know for sure - it appears to be coming from the train car - the top (cap?) Just saw live shots and it still coming outta there.

[Mo1]

....is it a broken valve at the plant itself?

I can't tell but it looks like a broken value somewhere

[michigander]

BREAKING NEWS: Chemical Leak Forces Dozens to Evacuate

8/14/2002 11:03:28 AM

JEFFERSON COUNTY (KSDK) -- A chemical spill at the Jones Chemical plant in Jefferson County is forcing the evacuations of a number of residents of the Blue Fountain Mobile Home Community on US-Hwy 61 this morning.

The yellowish gas you see next to the rail car is chlorine leaking from a pipe next to the rail car. Officials with the Jefferson County Sheriffs Department say all the evacuations are precautionary.

The spill is of an unknown amount. It is not known how the spill occurred or who may have been responsible.

NewsChannel 5 has a crew on the way to the scene and we’ll continue to update this story as more information becomes available.

[ken5050]

If you pour water on it, don't you get hydrochloric acid?